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Equipment Sharing in Agriculture

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Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics

Synonyms

Machinery sharing; Shared use of farm assets

Introduction

For many farming operations, shared use of machinery may offer a “trifecta” for improving farm business performance – increased profitability through production efficiency and cost reduction, reduced risk, and a reduction in invested capital. Shared use of machinery, with or with joint ownership, is one strategy growers have explored to gain access to equipment that is used only infrequently and is relatively expensive, making individual ownership impractical or even infeasible. Access to new, technologically advanced farming equipment can directly affect the income statement through improved productivity and quality and replace expensive or hard-to-find labor. Higher capacity equipment than could otherwise be owned alone can reduce time windows needed to complete critical operations (e.g., planting or harvesting before the rains) significantly reducing production risk. In many cases, owning only a share of a...

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Correspondence to Georgeanne Artz .

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Artz, G. (2014). Equipment Sharing in Agriculture. In: Thompson, P., Kaplan, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6167-4_66-4

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